Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-21
DAILY HERALD.
THE SIERRAS.
Pleasant Notes of Noun
tain Travel.
ABOUT THE MINES.
An Interesting Letter From
Herald" Correspondent in
Northern California.
THE SIERRAS.
ABOUT THE MINES.
GRASS VALLEY, Cal.

Certainly 1t would have been more
romantic to say, we started on our
journey as Phnbus Apollo was ting
ing the mountain tops with gold, but,
remembering how it actually was,
with blush | confess it, the sun was
high up in the heavens and was max
ing himself felt accordingly, when
leaving Marysville behind us, we
gladly turn our faces eastward, cross
ing the Yuba at that place and pass
ing across ten miles of dusty valley,
arrived at the foot hills. An hour later
and Timbuctoo is lowering down
upon us from its rocky hill
Rough and Ready next claims
our attention and sympathy
too, one might well say, for it is one
of the many little villages in these
mountains which are slowly, but
surely and bitterly, dying at the
hands of the Anti-Debris Association.
The hydraulickers have been COM
PEELED to quit work, their machinery,
much of it, lying useless on the
hillsides, their pipes and bitches
breaking and crumbling away.
Hydraulic mining is as bitterly dis.
cussed here as your riparian rights"
of Los Angeles county.
The hydraulicker sees the Sacra-
mento river and valley, and thinks it a
splendid place to deposit his refuse
mountains after they have been raw
ished of their treasures, and hard, in
deed, would it be likely to go with
any man found to be "valley spy"
A miner said to me: "It won't
be six months before all our claims
will be working again and we'll send
the Yuba down onto them thicker than
pancake batter"
Grass Valley is the largest town in
California north of Sacramento. 1t is
in the southwestern part of the noun
tain county of Nevada, and contains
within the corporation population of
about 1000.
curving at almost every block, shaded
by long rows of locusts and poplars
which straggle up steep hl.lsides, in
terlace their waving branches over
time-honored house-topsa and disappear
down narrow dry ravine. 1t is really
a charming place-this Dome of the
Sierras-with its ivy-clad walls and
green terraces, its sloping gardens of
brilliant flowers and quaint Old-World
air.
think no one should visit the land
of gold without seeing the mines. l
am sure | should feel like Christian
pilgrim who had left the Holy Land
without seeing Jerusalem and Calvary
if l could not visit the dark sepulchre
where this king of metals is entombed.
So, walking out one morning up
broad and winding path, past cottages
nesting in fields of red-top clover and
half hidden in orchard trees, we
present ourselves at the office of Mr..
Edward Coleman and the Idaho Min
ing Company. Our request to in
spect the mine being kindly granted,
we don the dress of lady visitors, con-
sisting of a lopg waterproof cloak,
much embossed with the ma
terial from which candles are
manufactured and silk hats similarly
decorated.
Our escort, Mr.. Dunkley, the chief
engineer, hands us each lighted
candle and places us in position on the
cage. The "cage' is a small car,
about three and one-half by five feet,
with small wheels on one side run
ming on an iron track, and suspended
by steel wire cables from hosting
machinery above.
There is an iron rod over our heads
which we grasp firmly with both
hands, the bell rings three times, the
cage trembles, then moves downward,
the light of day disappears above us
in grey twilight.
Have you ever dreamed that you
were falling from some dreadful
height, down, down through space
with the awful fear that you may keep
on falling forever-half buoyed up
by the air-with scarcely a hope
of ever touching solid earth again ?
The sensation is something similar.
| forgot that | was a real, living crea-
ture, watching the timbers chase one
another upward from the gloom be-
meath TO the gloom overhead, by the
weird candlelight, when the voice OF
our guide, replying to some questions
l had not heard, broke the spell. ooh,
no, we are only about half way down."
he was saying. and then he told us to
stand perfectly quiet, to brace our
hands against the bar, and not to let
our feet slip, as the shaft would
presently be much less perpendicular
and we would have to accommodate
ourselves to the angle of the cage.
Leaning forward at an angle
of about As degrees, face downward
our heels preceding us, we arrive at
the bottom of the shaft, 1000 feet be-
low the surface and the bright light of
day, slightly dizzy and with arms
lame from continued bracing. Down
here men are busy receiving heavy
timber from the world above, to be
used in bracing up the tunnels.
This level is 800 feet in length.
There are two engines run by COM
pressed air at the opposite end, and a
track for running ore cars connects
the bottom of this with the mouth of
another shaft, which leads to the 100
feet level, the lowest point reached.
SLOWLY we move along tne tunnel,
which is some four or five feet wide
and about eight feet high. The ground
is cold and wet under foot, and the
Changing wall' of solid rock is drip
ping with moisture.
Workmen are moving about like
dark spectres in the gloom the en-
gines throbbing like mighty pulses
disturb the stiffness.
We did not visit the 1700-foot level,
it being rather an inconvenient day to
do so, owing to the immense timbers
which were constantly being sent
down the shaft but this we don't re-
gret so much as there is nothing there
to see but what may be seen in the
"cross-cut" 700-foot level, to which we
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